Hugh Neilson

Affects Solid World is also pretty pricy.
 
At standard power levels, "most attacks can't touch me" is likely overpowered. In a game at 800 points, perhaps we should be pulling out the APG for 100% Damage Reduction for our Speedster who reacts so rapidly that most attacks can never connect.

Edited above.  If one character, or the entire group, render combat meaningless, I see three choices:
 
 - Their characters need to be toned down to match the game.  This is probably the only real answer if only one character is problematic.
 
 - The opposition needs to be cranked up to match the characters.  If it's only one overpowered character, arranging for every opponent to have someone who can deal with that one problem character and not overpower the rest is tough.  "It seems like EVERY villain team and agent squad has a kryptonite-based weapon".
 
 - Combat is no longer the focus of the game. The challenge moves to finding the opponents so that they can be automatically disarmed and captured, or preventing them using their out of combat resources to avoid punishment for their crimes. Only one character?  Funny how something ALWAYS comes up to distract him so he has to go deal with an off-screen issue, just before combat, isn't it?

I don’t have a problem with characters being hard to hit with most attacks, as long as they can still be challenged.   If the character with the sky high DCV has poor defenses to the point where one hit with an average attack for the campaign is likely to take them out of the combat that can usually work.   If the character is nearly imposable to hit and can shrug off nearly all attacks that is another story. 
 
Also, if the character has to maintain a very defenses strategy to keep from being hit that also offsets some of the problem.  The character that has a high DCV due to dodging or applying skill levels reduces his offensive capabilities to balance the character.  The speedster who spends half the time dodging attacks works, the one that shows up and automatically disarms and captures all the opponents does not.  The first speedster has an effective SPD of half his listed SPD, the second one creates problems. 
 
If the group can work the speedster into their tactics he becomes less of a problem. For example, when the tank of group draws the attacks of the opponents to give the speedster the opportunity to act because the opponent has already attacked involves both characters.     
 

There is nothing wrong with a GM telling a player that is a cool concept but it is not going to work in the game I am running.   The game is a cooperative effort that is supposed to be fun for everyone.  When your concept starts to create problems for the GM and especially for the other players you need to be willing to modify your concept.  In fact this is something that a good GM will do to ensure everyone is enjoying the game.   I would go so far as to say that it is a responsibility of the GM to ensure that no character ruins the fun for the rest of the group.   
 
A good GM will should give some advice on how to tone things down so you can play a character you want. But they should make sure that no one character dominates the game or creates problems.    
 

Well I think there might be a false dichotomy being promoted here of either you are really tightly built with every point squeezed to its limit to make the most efficient and effective character possible... or you make a concept character that is a hapless clod incompetent in every way.  I see it more as a combination of elements.  You can have a fairly effective conceptual character and a conceptual efficient character.  
 
The character who builds in less efficient portions (such as the 10 CON mentalist) might not have quite as many points to spend on everything but its not crippling, either.  And a tight concept might be more effective than the super efficient build simply because it is tight and works well as a package.  And of course, there's the effect of role playing, where even if a character isn't the most powerful combat machine imaginable, they have other aspects and the game is about more than beating up the next bad guy.  I mean, ideally.
 
And then there's the GM who has the power to make things right.  A good GM is not like a computer game, they can adjust the encounters, setting, events, and circumstances to give the "weaker character" a chance to shine and be useful or important even in the combat they may not excel in.
 
 
Well, let's put it this way: if your concept is the full potential of a comic book speedster when logically followed through to their natural consequences and the way they are on occasion depicted... nobody has that many points and you cannot build that character.
 
But you can build a speedster that acts much like a comic book speedster in most of their encounters.  No, there's no chance anyone can shoot their freeze ray gun faster than the Flash can dodge it.  No, Mirror Master could not reach over and push buttons on his wrist before the Flash could run around the world seven times, eat a pizza, and read a book, then stop the button pushing.
 
And both of those things happen in the comics: the freeze ray goes off before Flash acts, Mirror Master pushes his silly buttons before the Flash can stop him.

And yet here you are on the Internet...

Our group has typically focused more on concept than min-max.  At the same time, most players don't like discovering their character is "the weakest link" in game.  Hero presents itself as "build the character you want". This should come with "and your concept will be playable in the game".  When certain concepts have a significant efficiency advantage (or disadvantage), players' ability to play the concept they want is eroded.
 
Better balance does not harm players who build to concept, does it?

And yet here you are on the Internet...

And yet here you are on the Internet...

Sounds like Change Environment to me.  IIRC, suffocation made it into APG I as an added to CE.

We've played with attacking not ending a phase.  It did not change much.  Take that as one experience only - our group has never focused on eking every last bit of effectiveness and efficiency out of every character point and every phase, so a group more focused on that efficiency could find ways to create more issues. As well, there is already some "analysis paralysis" in many Hero games, especially with newer players, and having more options will only increase that.
 
As has already been highlighted above, how tightly you stick to existing rules about things you can only do once per phase, like reassign multipower pools and skill levels, could have an impact.
 
You could also add a rule that some of these zero phase reallocation "actions" cannot be performed after an attack, or perhaps once you have used the points allocated to an attack or to OCV/damage.  That is, once you use a level in an attack (OCV or damage), it's gone until the start of your next phase (unless you abort) and once you use Pool points (Multipower or VPP), they are similarly locked until the start of your next phase.

This works well if you can isolate two things:
 
 - the hooks - what is the core of the character, to the player.   Maybe that's "great at archery and shapeshifts into animals" - spells can go by the wayside.
 
 - the wishes - what does the player wish the character could do, but D&D does not facilitate it (or reserves it for a much higher level).  Maybe "I'd rather she was a Dwarf, but their stats are all wrong" or "I wish she could take on hybrid animal forms".  HELLO HERO!

Comic book, Duke...and I know you don't read them, but they had an extended run at one time where trying to figure out how they got from 2 or three issues back to here was an adventure all its own!

I always liked having a couple of major scenarios going on at once, with an occasional one or two game session buried in there.
Back in the day, I had the series tracked, complete with occasional Annuals.

This works well if you can isolate two things:
 
 - the hooks - what is the core of the character, to the player.   Maybe that's "great at archery and shapeshifts into animals" - spells can go by the wayside.
 
 - the wishes - what does the player wish the character could do, but D&D does not facilitate it (or reserves it for a much higher level).  Maybe "I'd rather she was a Dwarf, but their stats are all wrong" or "I wish she could take on hybrid animal forms".  HELLO HERO!

Comic book, Duke...and I know you don't read them, but they had an extended run at one time where trying to figure out how they got from 2 or three issues back to here was an adventure all its own!

I always liked having a couple of major scenarios going on at once, with an occasional one or two game session buried in there.
Back in the day, I had the series tracked, complete with occasional Annuals.

This works well if you can isolate two things:
 
 - the hooks - what is the core of the character, to the player.   Maybe that's "great at archery and shapeshifts into animals" - spells can go by the wayside.
 
 - the wishes - what does the player wish the character could do, but D&D does not facilitate it (or reserves it for a much higher level).  Maybe "I'd rather she was a Dwarf, but their stats are all wrong" or "I wish she could take on hybrid animal forms".  HELLO HERO!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found some inspiration from 1970's Defenders...
 

I always wonder why someone would use one system to try to emulate another. Nothing will emulate a D&D game like playing D&D, so if that is the desired play experience, play D&D.
 
I recently read a Pathfinder scenario with some Lovecraftian influence.  It tried to bolt on a sanity mechanic (noted as optional). Given what the characters (L9 at the start of this section of an AP) should already have witnessed, their mental health should already have taken a hit.

I always wonder why someone would use one system to try to emulate another. Nothing will emulate a D&D game like playing D&D, so if that is the desired play experience, play D&D.
 
I recently read a Pathfinder scenario with some Lovecraftian influence.  It tried to bolt on a sanity mechanic (noted as optional). Given what the characters (L9 at the start of this section of an AP) should already have witnessed, their mental health should already have taken a hit.

If a typical movie portrayed a typical PC group over-analyzing micro decisions, we would likely have stopped producing movies a long time ago.

If a typical movie portrayed a typical PC group over-analyzing micro decisions, we would likely have stopped producing movies a long time ago.

If a typical movie portrayed a typical PC group over-analyzing micro decisions, we would likely have stopped producing movies a long time ago.

If a typical movie portrayed a typical PC group over-analyzing micro decisions, we would likely have stopped producing movies a long time ago.

If a typical movie portrayed a typical PC group over-analyzing micro decisions, we would likely have stopped producing movies a long time ago.

Nothing in the rules prevents combat luck working against an AoE attack.  The description is considered a -3/4 limitation (6e Vol 2 p 447), so there's a lot left to the GM to adjudicate, including the possibility that different special effects carry different restrictions.  Achieving a common understanding with the player(s) is probably more important than the specifics of that common understanding.